


Don't go blindly into the dark

by obiwanobi



Category: Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Past Abuse, anakin turns to the dark side a bit earlier, and runs away from his problems
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-01
Updated: 2021-03-01
Packaged: 2021-03-13 21:27:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,533
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29782329
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/obiwanobi/pseuds/obiwanobi
Summary: "It doesn't change my question," he says calmly, as he has always done after one of his padawan's tantrums. "Why didn't you come back to me, Anakin?"Anakin falls to the dark side earlier than expected, gets scared by his own impulses and decides to hide somewhere nobody will look for him. It doesn’t stop Obi-Wan from finding him.
Relationships: Obi-Wan Kenobi/Anakin Skywalker
Comments: 12
Kudos: 288





	Don't go blindly into the dark

**Author's Note:**

> Written for a prompt on tumblr where "Anakin falls early and instead of joining Sidious or Dooku, he runs, terrified of himself and stays somewhere he can’t tear the galaxy apart like the darkest part of himself keeps goading him to, until Obi-Wan comes to find him."
> 
> English isn't my native language so please disregard any grammar mistakes, I just really wanted to write some soft obikin.

"Anakin."

It's the first time in seven months that Obi-Wan pronounces his name with hope.

The back of the hooded figure visibly tenses in front of him.

Obi-Wan can see his hand clenching around his glass, and his head starts turning in his direction but stops before Obi-Wan can see his eyes. Instead, it's in the Force that Anakin reaches for him. It's a small, tentative tendril that crosses the space between them, ridiculously shy in comparison to the enthusiastic maelstrom that usually greets him when Obi-Wan extends his mind to Anakin.

But it's him. Too warm and barely controlled, the familiar flame of a burning pyre that Obi-Wan has never learned how to turn his eyes from.

 _Headache-inducing and almost unbearable_ , have been some words used to describe Anakin's presence in the Force.

 _The most comforting inferno_ , Obi-Wan has always thought.

Anakin feels surprised, and something close to joy colours the Force around him for a fleeting moment. Obi-Wan can feel the corners of his mouth turning up as he sighs affectionately.

"De—"

Then it all turns to panic.

He doesn't even have the time to realise that Anakin has retracted his signature behind durasteel shields the second it touched Obi-Wan's, because the man in front of him is already jumping to his feet, pushing the Twi'lek waiter away and running for the exit of the cantina.

It leaves Obi-Wan stunned, arm raised towards an empty chair.

Surprisingly, it's not panic that filled him. It’s not even the persistent fear that if he loses Anakin now, after months of roaming the galaxy looking for him, then how long will it take before catching the smallest clue of his location again?

No, this time, the worry and dread that have been his faithful companions for so long now, make way for something only Anakin knows how to infuse into him in the most inappropriate of times: exasperation.

"Anakin!" he yells, making the Rodian next to him jump in his seat. 

Rushing outside, his eyes scan the street, trying to find a tall figure in a brown robe. At the same time, he stretches his senses through the Force to guide him to his infuriating former padawan. Not used to the brightness of the twin suns and the constant particles of sand and dust floating around, Obi-Wan is almost certain that the glimpse of Anakin's presence he felt for half a second is only due to his inattention and not Obi-Wan's skills. For once, Obi-Wan isn't going to complain about Anakin's lack of focus: he starts running right away.

Anakin goes through three sharp turns, two attempts at climbing a roof and even one force-jump through the window of a shop, but Obi-Wan is determined to follow him wherever he goes. Even if he has to apologise to every irritated person he pushes out of the way.

"This is ridiculous," he says loudly, when he catches the dark brown robe trying to zigzag between stands, "I don't even know why you're running away from me!"

He thinks he can see Anakin throwing him a look, but with the hood over his face and one of the suns starting to set in front of him, can't be certain. It's only a few minutes later, when Anakin seems to miss a turn and finds himself out of the streets, at the edge of a cliff overlooking the desert and its endless dunes, that he realises his mistake.

They're out of town now. There's nothing but the background noise of civilisation left behind, a warm wind sweeping the sand between them, and the twin suns bathing Anakin's silhouette in a glowing light.

"An—" Obi-Wan pants, trying to get his breath under control. He's not used to such heat, and all the running, Force-jumping and sweating really didn't help. Still, he takes a step towards him.

"Don't," Anakin warns.

It’s a sharp command, but hearing the sound of his voice soothes a deep ache that has plagued most of Obi-Wan's nights for the past few months.

Anakin is facing the canyon, the dune sea and the suns. From where he stands, Obi-Wan can only see his back. Merely a dark form with a double shadow.

Even if he doesn't show his face, feelings bleed through his shields, as if he's still a padawan trying to get an awkward hold on the Force. There are confusion and anger, most of it directed at himself, Obi-Wan notes, and an all-encompassing veil of shame around it. Fear is here too, blending the edges of the mess produced by the cacophony of so many emotions clattering against each other. Obi-Wan can feel Anakin realising the flaws in his mental defences, and the spark of mortification before he hastily tries to rein it all in.

For a second, Obi-Wan thinks he's going to jump down the canyon just to avoid the embarrassment of inadvertently broadcasting his emotions.

"I won't stop chasing you now that I've found you," Obi-Wan informs him, before the idea comes to Anakin's mind. The jump wouldn't kill him, but Obi-Wan really doesn't feel like tracking him through rocky canyons, tusken traps and krayt dragons. "I won't stop before you tell me why you're running away from me."

Anakin lowers his head without replying, shoulders sagging. Obi-Wan's feet move slowly. His mind reaches once again towards Anakin's, brushing against him in a wordless question.

All irritation gone by now, he adds, quietly, "And why you didn't come home."

Anakin's shields shudder. "You shouldn't have come."

"Anakin, the Separatists had you as their prisoner for almost a _month_. Rex told me he saw Grievous dragging your body to his ship himself. The Council waited for their terms of release, and when it didn't come, we thought you were _dead_."

"The Council," he snarls darkly, "they probably were happy to finally get rid of me."

"You know it's not true."

"No, I don't."

"Do you think I was happy, then?" Obi-Wan retorts, trying to stop the need to go grab his robe and shake some senses into him. "Do you think Rex and I enjoyed having to plead with the Republic War Council to give us more time to look for you?"

The dark robe in front of him shuffles a bit. "You took the 501st to look for me?"

"Of course we looked for you! We went through every report of Grievous' flagship presence and got every intel we could gather about your possible location. There was no clue in any Separatist outposts we raided," he continues, focusing on his words to stay composed, and not the memory of becoming desperate enough after another fruitless day to check black markets for familiar mechno-arm's parts. "And we were starting to believe that you were truly dead then, until... Until we found an abandoned facility. With a lot of battle droids destroyed, and Grievous and Dooku dead. Force-choked to death."

Anakin stays silent again. Above the horizon, one of the suns has settled low enough to brush against the dune sea. The light has turned to a deep orange around his silhouette.

Obi-Wan takes a step.

"There was a holorecording."

The only answer he gets is the sound of a sharp intake of air, and an intensity in the Force that always saturates the air when Anakin tries, in vain, to calm his mind.

Another step.

"I saw you taking a starfighter. I saw you leaving the facility, free."

Another step.

"Why didn't you come back to the Temple?"

"There was nothing for me there anymore," Anakin says, quietly. 

The word stops Obi-Wan in his tracks.

Somehow, one sentence is harder to swallow than months of worry. He has always known that he failed to make Anakin feel at home at the Temple, or make him realise that there might not be parents or siblings in names there, but the feeling of kinship remained the same. But to hear him say that the sum of all these years spent there together boils down to nothing to him still manages to crack Obi-Wan's composure.

The dryness of his throat makes his next words difficult to pronounce.

"Why didn't you come back to _me_ , Anakin?"

"BECAUSE I'VE FAILED YOU!" Anakin snaps, throwing his arms up and his shields down.

The Force erupts in an intense fire within Anakin, crackling around him in warning to anyone who would approach it, white-heat fever and boundless darkness at the same time. His hood falls from his head when he finally turns toward Obi-Wan in a dramatic movement of his robe. Even if the sunset at his back prevents Obi-Wan from seeing his expression, hidden in the shadow, he can't miss his golden hair forming an incandescent halo around his face. 

It tastes like ash on Obi-Wan's tongue.

Obi-Wan pulls his own shields a bit tighter around him.

"Why do you keep asking this question when you know what I've done? Why are you even here? Are you here to kill me? Because I failed you, Obi-Wan! I killed them and I felt nothing but satisfaction! I accepted the dark side, I welcomed it even, it burned through me and it's still burning right now, and I'm incapable of controlling anything, not even my own shields! So no, I couldn't come back and pretend I could still be a Jedi. And now you saw it, you saw everything, so I can't even prete— I can't..."

The swirling of emotions comes crashing down around Anakin so violently that Obi-Wan physically flinches, and it looks like the Force is suddenly cutting down the strings holding him upright. He crumples to the ground in a cloud of sand and dust, close, too close to the edge of the cliff.

There's only the sound of Anakin panting for a moment, long enough for Obi-Wan to gather his thoughts, and take another step. Only he would be foolish enough to want to touch glowing embers.

"It doesn't change my question," he says calmly, as he's always done after one of his padawan's tantrums. "Why didn't you come back to me, Anakin?"

He thinks he can see Anakin opening his mouth to answer, but only a short and derisive laugh leaves his lips before he drags his feet in the dust and turns away from him again to sit on the edge of the cliff.

Finally, — _finally,_ — Obi-Wan is close enough. Stopping just a few centimetres from Anakin's back, his hand instinctively reaches for his shoulder. Hovering for a second before touching it, it still settles there firmly and squeezes.

 _It belongs there_ , he thinks as Anakin makes a small noise at the back of his throat.

He expects Anakin to shrug off his hand, refuse his touch, just like he's refusing to look directly at him. But he doesn't.

"I couldn't see you," Anakin admits, eyes closed. "I don't care about the Council, or the Republic, or anyone else, but I couldn't... I couldn't bear the disappointment in your eyes.” He swallows, and adds in a quiet voice, “I didn't want you to leave me, so I left first."

"Oh, Anakin," Obi-Wan sighs, trying to hold back the affection in his voice. He pauses for a second, relishing the feel of Anakin letting him rub his thumb on his shoulder. "I am saddened and upset, yes. When I watched all that anger unleashed and how you succumbed to it, how you crushed Grievous and Dooku so easily that I could almost feel the dark side through the holo, I felt... I felt heartbroken."

The indignation he expected or any sort of accusations to shift the blame on something or someone else doesn't come. Instead, Anakin bows his head and pulls his legs closer to him, looking like he has just been hit.

"I'm sorry Master," he manages to whisper, face hidden behind his arms and hair, "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry—"

"Listen, _listen_ ," Obi-Wan begs, kneeling next to him. "I was heartbroken _for you_. You were alone, in a terrible situation, being taunted, electrocuted, _tortured_. It doesn't excuse what you did, but, Anakin, you disappeared for months after that. You ran away without a word, without an explanation, and I couldn't— I couldn't believe you would voluntarily turn your back on us. I didn’t want to believe that you didn't trust us enough to help you.” His hand slides from Anakin’s shoulder to the back of his neck and squeezes lightly. “And then you called for me."

"No, I didn't." The muffled, petulant tone makes Obi-Wan smiles faintly. His hand moves up to Anakin's curls, pushing unruly locks behind his ears.

  
"You did. Unconsciously, probably, but you did. For so long, I couldn't reach you through the Force, but I kept trying every time I meditated, hoping to catch a glimpse of you, anything to make sure you were still alive somewhere. And one day, I heard you. Far, far away, barely loud enough for me to recognise you, but I heard you. _Wishing I was with you_." Anakin's hand clenches in a fist at the words, shame burning bright in the Force. Obi-Wan ignores it, fingers still running through his hair in a rhythmic movement. "That's why I've spent seven months looking for you, searching the galaxy for you. Because I wished I were with you too."

Obi-Wan didn't expect the wounded noise that escapes Anakin's mouth, and even less that his admission would cause Anakin to throw himself at him in a fierce embrace. Caught off-guard, Obi-Wan topples and falls on his back in a cloud of dust under the weight of his former padawan. In the Force, Anakin's shields come crashing down again, but this time Obi-Wan doesn't draw back from it. Their bond suddenly bursts open, emotions spilling in all directions and showering him with a chaotic jumble of _relief-longing-hope_ , eventually blending together to only leave _lovelovelove_.

It is loud, brash and almost oppressing. But it’s Anakin.

"Anakin," he sighs, with his falsely annoyed and secretly fond tone that seems to be the only way he knows how to pronounce his name. Heavy on top of him now, Anakin doesn't respond, too busy nuzzling Obi-Wan's neck. "The cliff is right there, we could have died."

"Don't care," he mumbles, squeezing his arms impossibly tighter around Obi-Wan.

Obi-Wan chuckles, and he can feel more than hear Anakin hums in appreciation at the sound, face hidden under his chin.

It’s alright. He can bear it a little longer. After months of extending his mind through millions of Force-sensitive beings scattered around the galaxy and still finding it empty, there is nothing more reassuring than being smothered by Anakin's presence in the Force.

He tugs on their bond a bit, just to feel it, and when Anakin instantly tugs back, Obi-Wan's hand on his waist pulls him closer.

"Would you look at me, Anakin?” He asks suddenly. “Just for a second. I have yet to really see you."

There is a short pause and then a long breath against his neck, before Anakin puts one elbow on the ground next to Obi-Wan's face, raises his head, and finally, truly looks at Obi-Wan.

"Hello there," Obi-Wan whispers, as familiar blue eyes blink at him.

Embarrassment tinges the Force and Anakin’s cheeks pink.

It’s only with these two words that he seems to remember that his shields are non-existent right now, and that Obi-Wan is lying flat on his back under him. 

Obi-Wan watches, amused, as he awkwardly starts to untangle his legs from his and shifts his weight to get to his knees. "Now, shall we—"

"Watch the sunset with me," Anakin blurts out, then realises what he just said and starts babbling. "I mean, we're already here and it's almost over now, but it's the only beautiful thing on this Force-forsaken planet."

"Oh, I'm not so sure about that," Obi-Wan grins as Anakin's eyes widen. He opens his mouth, thinks better of it and closes it, looking at anything but Obi-Wan. Taking pity on him, Obi-Wan raises his hand, silently asking to be pulled into a seating position. "Also, Anakin, the next time you want to punish yourself, please choose to do it on another planet than Tatooine. I don't think I can handle one more day of the suns trying to roast me like an Endorian chicken."

"Yes Master,” Anakin says, like the dutiful padawan he never was. He grabs his master's hand and hauls Obi-Wan up before letting go. “Your fair skin will be my first consideration the next time I turn to the dark side."

"I'm sure it will."

Anakin rolls his eyes, but takes advantage of Obi-Wan adjusting himself to sit at the edge of the cliff to duck his head and hide his reddened cheeks.

And then it dawns on Obi-Wan. 

Right at this moment, seated next to his Anakin, their feet dangling over the edge of the canyon and the quiet tune of their signatures melting into each other again, Obi-Wan is _happy_. Even if Anakin is still dangerously close to the dark side, even if the war isn't completely over yet, even if he's not going to get away with deliberately ignoring the Council's messages for the past few months, Obi-Wan feels at peace. Content.

Eyes closed, he whispers his thanks to the Force for not taking one of the most important people in his life away from him again.

He doesn't need to look at Anakin to know he's wondering what he's doing, and his smile only grows before taking Anakin’s hand in his own. Anakin makes a surprised noise and turns his head to look at him. His expression almost shifts into alarm when Obi-Wan cups his face, thumb rubbing lightly against his cheek.

"We'll figure it out, Anakin. I won't leave you."

Obi-Wan is framing his face with both hands now, and can’t resist pressing his lips to his forehead. Anakin's signature turns impossibly brighter at the touch, and between the new uproar of feelings tangled together he’s projecting, Obi-Wan notices a tinge of desire and want that will definitely be analysed and probably used to tease him a bit more later.

After all, this shade of red looks lovely on his cheeks.

But he will have time to embarrass him further another day. Now, Obi-Wan just wants to enjoy the moment with him, without tension or embarrassment.

"...Also because I can't. The starship I borrowed has been making a worrying rattling noise since I left the Mid Rim, it's a miracle I arrived on Tatooine in one piece, and there is no way I'm putting another foot in it before you can assure me that it won't explode the moment I activate the hyperdrive regulator."

Anakin bursts into laughter, loud and spontaneous, awkwardness forgotten. "Borrowed? Who did you steal it from this time?"

"I would _never_ —" Obi-Wan scoffs, falsely indignant at the accusation.

"Don't lie, Master, it's unbecoming of you."

"I left a very apologetic note, if you must know."

Anakin laughs again, and it warms Obi-Wan's heart like nothing has managed to for the past seven months. Still smiling, Anakin leans on his side slowly to rest his temple against Obi-Wan's, bumping his shoulder with his. There isn't any space left between them.

"What would you do without me, Master?" Anakin whispers.

He has asked that a hundred times before, and each time Obi-Wan has rolled his eyes and replied with sarcasm. But here, now, basking in the golden light of the sunset together, after asking himself the same question for months, Obi-Wan can’t bring himself to joke about it.

It’s hard not to burst with how warm he feels with Anakin messy locks tickling his face and Anakin's breathe near his ear and Anakin's hand in his, and his voice sounds a bit tight when he finally manages to answer.

"Crash and burn, probably." 

The last of Tatooine’s suns goes down in front of them. 

_The most comforting inferno_ , Obi-Wan thinks as the scorching heat of Anakin's signature clings to him too tightly.

It’s fine.

He doesn't mind burning at all.

* * *

(“You left the Temple without telling anyone.”

“I did.”

“You gave Cody enough accreditations to basically do whatever he wants with the 212th.”

“He earned that.”

“You’ve ignored your comm for the past two months.”

“I’m not very proud of that one.”

“Wow.”

“Yes.”

“I feel like I should ask _you_ if you think you're falling to the dark side right now.”

“Oh, please Anakin.”

“Is there anything else I should know?”

“Well.”

“….No way. Tell me. Tell me now.”

“I was a bit agitated before leaving the Temple to find you, and other masters wanted me to focus on something else, so it’s possible that I..."

"That you what?"

"I might have told Ki-Adi Mundi that for the impressive size of his head, he wasn't using his brain very often, and slammed a door hard enough to break it on my way out."

"Obi-Wan!"

“I can’t tell if you’re more scandalised or delighted.”

“I can’t choose! I can't believe you rebelled against the Council when I wasn't there. Tell me everything from the very beginning, and don't forget to describe Windu's face at any point in time.") 


End file.
